Chessconnect: a free chrome extension for electronic chessboards

Thank you @qnuti!

I have started working on iOS and Android but this is still a long way to go. The next big thing will be a more flexible framework for integrating new chess sites. First result of which is going to be a complete integration of lichess (e.g. analysis board, training, etc). Most likely followed by chessable.

For those of you who own a Mephisto Phoenix or think about getting one: Chessconnect is now available on that platform, too.

Unfortunately, it was not possible to make it available for free. The Phoenix is a closed platform and Millennium had to assign some significant ressources to this project. You won't believe, how much testing these guys did.

Millennium was the first company to support Chessconnect when it was still a "Chessnut only" project with about 50 users. They went all in then and they went all in with the Phoenix again. So, I don't mind them getting a bit of revenue now (plus, I get a small tip, too...). And I promise, the Chessconnect extension will always remain free.

And a lot of stuff from the Phoenix version poured over into the new version 4.4 which is currently in open beta.

With that out of the way, Chessconnect on the Phoenix is identical to the regular version and is still supported by myself. So, any question, problems, or ideas you might have should best be posted here in this thread.

You can find some more infos on Chessconnect for the Mephisto Phoenix here.

Wow, congrats Jörn.

A full integration like this lends quite a bit of legitimacy to the product.

Other companies may start looking to do full integrations as well.

Hello Joern,
although I think the price is way too high, I bought the license for the Phoenix. I was going to treat myself to a few teas soon anyway, so I've just bought a few more cups ;-)
Unfortunately, the connection to chess.com doesn't work at all on my Phoenix:
the response time in the app is extremely slow, for example: if I want to select a game against a bot, it takes almost a minute for the bot selection to appear. Most of the time, the selection window for the bots just stays white and I have to switch back and forth to other selection menus several times before bots even appear.
And no, my internet connection is stable. Lichess, for example, works OK on the Phoenix in the first test.
And with the bots, the connection to the board doesn't work at all. If I play black, the bot's first move is shown on the board with the LEDs, but my response move is not recognized. If I play white, my first move is not recognized at all.
The navigation is also faulty. I accidentally jumped from the analysis board to the FAQ page and couldn't find a way back. Only a restart helped.
I actually expected to get a working program for €99 and not beta software.

@Tobsi66: I am really sorry to hear that you have problems. Be assured that this is not a beta. Chessconnect on Phoenix has been tested by a whole team of testers for months. Do I understand you correctly that your Chessconnect works fine with lichess but not with chess.com?

For testing purposes: do you have the option to attach a network cable to the phoenix?

I'll also pass your post on to Millennium.

Hello Joern,

many thanks for the quick response.

I just quickly started two games against the computer on Lichess to test. This has worked well so far with no noticeable major delays.

Lichess via the Chesslink application also works without any problems. And Chessconnect via Windows and Android too.

I'm happy to test the LAN cable, but it won't work until the weekend because I'll have to move the Phoenix and the board to another place in the house.

Thanks @Tobsi66. I will install the version from the store on my Phoenix to check. But this will probably be on the weekend, too.

@joernupbde:

So, here is the current status:

LAN connection is not possible at all. I had forgotten that the Phoenix doesn't have a LAN connection

I then tested the WiFi speed and saw that the Phoenix, for whatever reason, chose a slow 2.4 GHz connection with just 1-2 MBit/sec. I then manually selected the better, faster connection again using the setting menu in the Phoenix. A 5 GHz connection was then also selected in Chessconnect. Now chess.com also works much better. But I still usually have to select “Play Bots” several times for the bots until the selection menu actually opens. The error message also appeared several times: “unable to connect to the external board”. But cable was ok. and playing in the Phoenix worked without any problems.

The biggest problem is probably that the Phoenix automatically dials into a weak WLAN. Unfortunately, as a user I can't really control this. An option to select WLAN directly in chessconnect would certainly be helpful here.

@Tobsi66: Thank you for this feedback.

So, it seems we have identified the network speed as the cause of the problem. As a workaround, you can plug a network cable into the Phoenix using a cheap USB to ethernet adapter.

In the meantime I will talk to Millennium and probably PhoenixCS to see if there are other options to boost WLAN performance.

@joernupbde

I think the problem is, that the Phoenix choses the "wrong" WLAN. I´m using parallel 2,4/5 GHz in my Router and in the settings Phoenix shows two network to select. I selected the faster connection but don´t know why, the Phoenix changed to the second, slower one.

If the correct WLAN is selected, it seems to work. Not 100% free of error, but significantly better.

I will look for the adapter and a 15 meter LAN cable than I will tell you the results.

@joernupbde

Hi Joern,

here is my update after the LAN cable arrived today.

At least a stable connection is now established. I think the Phoenix has a problem there. For testing, I placed another RaspberryPi 4 next to it with Picochess installed. Here I always have a fast and constant connection to my network. Other devices, such as an Apple TV, also run smoothly. The Phoenix constantly switches between 2.4 and 5 GHz (it is set in parallel in my router for other reasons) and below 2.4 GHz it only manages speeds of 1-2 MBit/s. I think the network in Phoenix is ​​just too unstable. Strangely enough, this was never a problem in Lichess under Play Online before the update.

But unfortunately not all problems are solved by the LAN:

First, after selecting “Play against bots”, it often happens that the selection window for selecting a bot remains empty. Only selecting “Play against bots” several times in the menu will eventually lead to the bots being displayed. Here I think the problem may also lie with the chess.com site itself. However, this doesn't happen when I play in Windows via chessconnect with Chesslink/Millennium or Chessnut. Everything works there fine.

But the more serious problem is that the board is regularly not recognized or the moves are not transferred.

Especially when I play Black without turning the board, i.e. Black starts on rows 1 and 2, there are problems. Either the figures are not recognized at all or the bot's moves are displayed in white with the LEDs and the LEDs go out when I have made the move. But my move with black is not recognized. When I then make my move in the browser with a click, white turns again and the LEDs display the move correctly. So white on row 7/8 is recognized, black on ½ is not. And as I said, sometimes the board remains completely silent.

And no, I don't think this is a connection error or a loose cable. Lichchess in chessconnect and all other functions (Phoenix, retro emulations, Lichess via the original menu) work perfectly. No matter which side is black.

I just released 4.4.4beta which hopefully is going to become the next official release soon. There is nothing fancy in this version. Just a couple of minor bug fixes and improvements.

It would be great, if some of you gave this version some test rides before I put it out.

I'm sorry to say but I don't even have a free minute at the moment, renovating bedroom and I got a new job (drawback is I work overtime while being worked in). From mid-December that will change, but I can't even play a rapid game of chess atm

There are about 2500 Chessconnect users. Maybe somebody else will step in.

I just had a strange effect with my Chessnut pro over Bluetooth. Sometimes the board behaves, as if two players were sharing a board. Random LEDs blinking and weird voice announcements. Has anybody else seen this? If yes, is there a way to reproduce the problem?

The only "strange" thing I have is that after a game ends the board still wants to keep the position until I leave the game screen, but that's tolerable (if I move the pieces to starting location the board recognizes "misplaced" pieces).

That's intended behaviour. Chessconnect operates on a very simple principle: it compares the position on the screen with the position on the physical board. If there's a difference, it either lights LEDs or computes a move. It makes very few assumptions about the ongoing game. That's why it's so flexible.

LEDs lingering around after a game is a drawback of this approach.

Hey @joernupbde

I tried v4.4.4b with the DGT Pegasus (not tried with the Tabutronic Sentio yet), the board is properly connected but games don't start, moves are not registered, led rings don't flash, nothing happens. On both Chess dotcom and Lichess. Latest Microsoft Edge browser version. I put back the official v4.3.25, which works great. Thanks for reading and keep up the good work !

Thank you for testing, @Kromok2. I'll check...

I updated the beta to 4.4.5. This should fix the problem with the Pegasus.

Amazing work. Thanks for your continued support. How is the iOS version coming along.